Battlestar Galactica Final Season Split In Two

So why do I only have half a Viper pictured? That’s because Battlestar Galactica is having its final season split into two.

You have got to be frakkin’ kidding me! (Read that with the angry, gravel-sounding voice of Col. Tigh in your head because it’s the only way to interpret that line.)

As I noted here back in April, I think one of the biggest mistakes in recent history of Sci Fi television is the Sci-Fi Channel splitting up the final 20 episodes of the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica into two, separate, 10-episode runs with tonight’s (Friday, June 13th) episode being the “mid-season” break.

Oh but wait, that was the good news. Not only is this episode the breaking point for the show, but we’re going to have to wait until the beginning of next year, that’s right, 2009, before the show starts up again.

The Sci-Fi Channel didn’t want to tell anyone themselves, so they gave Ronald D. Moore the dour job of breaking the news to the media last Wednesday night at a screening.

The reasoning given for the show not starting back up until next year is “end of the year competition” such as new fall television series’, baseball and football.

I can sort of understand new shows competing even if The Sci-Fi Channel doesn’t have a ton of competition Friday nights at 10 pm, but come on, baseball and football? Am I that dense or more to the point, how can daytime sports impact a Friday-night-at-10PM sci-fi show? Someone goofed when making up that excuse. (Yes, I said excuse and I explain a little later why)

Moore was quoted as being apologetic when he announced this, and I’m sure he not only feels bad, but is anxious to see his vision of the series realized for the fans and for the actors.

When NBC Universal exec Bonnie Hammer was asked when, exactly, Battlestar Galactica will be back on, she replied: “We don’t have a locked in schedule yet,” but added “We just know that it’s always better to leave the fans just titillated a little bit, but it will definitely be back.”

Titillated my… sorry.

So why don’t I believe anything Bonnie Hammer says and why am I going to use her name repeatedly?

The first reason: Even though the Sci-Fi Channel has trumpeted this as being the show’s FINAL season, they’ve gone and split it up, making this the next-to-last final season, and 2009 will be the final-final season. Ten episode seasons suck Sci-Fi! Do you hear the words that are coming out of my mouth?

The other reason I don’t believe Bonnie Hammer:

In September of 2007, (Hmm, that far back? Sounds more like a plan than a response to present-day market pressure) in Atlanta at Dragon Con, it was reported that the show would be split into two 10-episode segments, with the second set of episodes airing in February of 2009.

Jamie Bamber (Lee Adama) gave up the ghost on this one and he’s quoted as saying something I loved reading:

“the channel is not used to producing high quality material and now that it has a hit, it doesn’t know what to do with it.”

Bamber went a bit further and said that is how Sci-Fi essentially gets two final seasons for the cost of one. No wonder we don’t see him in other NBC projects these days! (Side note: He’s in two new projects. One from Distant Horizons and another from Marathon Productions.)

I suppose we’re going to have to really wait to see who the final Cylon is, won’t we?